If there’s anything that I’m truly ace at, it’s distraction. And when the most important thing that I ought to do is to write an entry for my blog (a self-inflicted priority, I confess), an eleven-hour-plus transatlantic flight is the perfect opportunity to do everything but. En route from San Diego to Munich, every time I brought out my iPad with intention to begin an entry, I found myself overtaken with the need to — you name it: Snack. Nap. Watch “Hotel Transylvania” over my daughter’s shoulder with no audio or captions. Read another chapter of the London-based LGBT+ romcom I downloaded on a whim from the public library app. Basically, engage in every excuse to faff around and be a total bellend. (Note the use of English slang I learned from reading that novel. Time well spent, innit?)
Presently, we are on the return flight back to SAN, and it took approximately five hours, three chapters of James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”, two virgin Bloody Marys (ie, tomato juice with salt and pepper) and one proper tearjerker of a Korean movie — to finally write in earnest. Better late than never. (But who’s keeping time, anyway?)
When I was tooling around the library app last night, admittedly looking for another LGBT+ novel to download because it just so much fun to read (nothing too kinky; think same-sex young adult fiction), I saw that “Atomic Habits” was available for a seven-day, skip-the-line download. There’s usually a several week- or month-long wait for popular books, whether hard copy or electronic, so I jumped at the opportunity. With the deadline to return it by next Tuesday, however, the novel about a lighthearted lesbian romp will just have to take a backseat.
I’m familiar with James Clear from having watched several YouTube videos, either of him being interviewed directly or his work being referred to tangentially. I mistakenly assumed that I already had the gist of what this book would be about — small habits, when consistently applied, lead to big changes — so I didn’t expect to find anything new or perspective shifting. But in all honesty, I don’t usually give my full attention to videos and podcasts, often playing them in the background while I jog or do my trash walk. (As in, literally picking trash while walking around the neighborhood, versus suggestively strutting in stilettos.) The problem with multi-tasking is that I’m basically half-assing everything.
I considered myself as recently developing positive changes and habits. A few months ago, I started a morning routine that involved waking up before dawn and doing burpees on the breezeway of our condo, cold showers, meditation and journaling. I committed to practicing my guitar on a daily basis and even managed to learn my first (and so far, only) Smashing Pumpkins song. (Perhaps only the most die-hard SP fan might recognize my muddled barre chord progression, but to be fair, I don’t intend on busking anywhere in the near lifetime.) I was writing here on a fairly consistent basis, and have been intentionally setting aside time to connect with long-distance friends through the lost art of penpal-ing.
However, despite these changes, I don’t feel that I have made any significant headway in being the person that I want to become. Perpetually a sandwich short of a picnic, now doing a bunch of life hacks and random shit. Busy spinning my wheels, still going nowhere. But in reading the book, I realize that maybe I’m still in what Clear calls the Valley of Disappointment (“where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results.” p.47) and I have yet to cross the Plateau of Latent Potential (where efforts finally yield a tangible result.) I took a screenshot of a page and sent it to my two girlfriends in our WhatsApp group, contending why I am still flat-assing it after a doing a month of booty sculpting videos.
Maybe this is a bit of a cop-out, but I’m choosing to end this entry here. I don’t think there is room for any major epiphanies because I’m absolutely knackered and partially distracted by the movie flickering on a screen across the aisle. (Is he still watching Dune? How come no one’s wearing the nose thing anymore? The movie still has apocalyptic desert vibes, but why were Timotheé Chalamet and Zendaya replaced with bikini-clad models from a Christian Dior perfume ad?) There’s a little over three hours left of the flight, and I’d prefer to indulge in another good bawl with a second Korean flick.
What is important to me was to write something… anything… only if to prove to myself that I am who I want to be.